Page:Whymenfightameth00russuoft.djvu/83

Rh are expensive and never individually certain of achieving any result. In this matter, Great Britain lags behind all other civilized countries.

The second kind of powers which the State ought to possess are those that aim at diminishing economic injustice. It is this kind that has been emphasized by socialists. The law creates or facilitates monopolies, and monopolies are able to exact a toll from the community. The most glaring example is the private ownership of land. Railways are at present controlled by the State, since rates are fixed by law; and it is clear that if they were uncontrolled, they would acquire a dangerous degree of power. Such considerations, if they stood alone, would justify complete socialism. But I think justice, by itself, is, like law, too static to be made a supreme political principle: it does not, when it has been achieved, contain any seeds of new life or any impetus to development. For this reason, when we wish to remedy an injustice, it is important to consider whether, in so doing, we shall be destroying the incentive to some form of vigorous action which